For When You Can’t Get Into Octopussy’s

On our last day in Ireland, my wife and I traveled out from the main city towards the coast, to the town of Howth. Honestly, the travel system in Ireland is great. Our first day there we picked up travel passes for Region 1, which covered Dublin and the surrounding areas, and with those passes we could take unlimited trips on all the buses, trams, and trains in the area. We used these a lot, including for the trip out to Howth, and we never had any complaints about the whole system. Everything was clean, well organized, and useful, and everything ran pretty darn close to on time. It was great.

Stepping off the train into Howth we were met with a nice seaside town. It honestly felt like one of those coastal towns you see in movies, with a main city area, docks coming off one end, some beaches along the side, and then quaint little houses climbing up the hill into the distance. Howth has a massive hill it’s built around, and that hill is actually a tourist attraction. Walking up the hill affords some magnificent views, if you decide to make that hike. We didn’t, only climbing up about halfway, just to explore the area a bit.

We also, later, ventured over to Howth castle, which isn’t really set up for people to explore. It’s privately owned, and hosts various events and classes you have to pay to attend. The grounds are open, so you can walk around, but there isn’t much to do aside from look at a couple of ruined buildings. But when you have a castle to look at, you go and look at the castle for a few minutes before moving on.

The beach was pretty, though. You got a wonderful view of the sea beyond Ireland, while exploring a rocky, pebbly beach. It wasn’t sandy, but covered almost entirely in rocks and stones of all shapes and sizes, tumbled and rolled in from the ocean. It was a weird beach to explore, and I’d hate to have to walk over all those rocks barefoot to go into the water (although while we were there, plenty of the locals did just that), but it certainly was an experience to be there and see it all.

And then it was time for lunch, and we were all set to wander down the pier and hit a little place called Octopussy’s. Yes, likely named after the James BondThe world's most famous secret agent, James Bond has starred not only in dozens of books but also one of the most famous, and certainly the longest running, film franchises of all time. character of the same name. Unfortunately, despite that being the plan, the restaurant (which was a small, hole-in-the-wall establishment) was packed with a long line. Sure, yes, it was lunch time so restaurants will be busier, but the Howth pier is basically a long stretch of restaurants, of which Octopussy’s is just one of several. I have to think people liked to go to it for the name (although I’m sure the food was solid, too), but because it was so busy we went somewhere else instead.

We ended up at The Pier House, an establishment further up the pier with an upscale feel to it. We went primarily because they weren’t as busy, but we were happy to find that they were also really good. With a quiet atmosphere, darker lighting, and a solid menu, we didn’t regret our choice to skip over Octopussy’s and head into The Pier House instead.

For our meal we selected a few different items. My wife started the meal with smoked salmon rillettes, a round of smoked salmon meat, shredded and cooked in fat, and then served topped with marinated cucumber, along with a side of sourdough bread. The salmon was delicious, with a nice smoky flavor and not too fishy, and the cucumber nicely complimented it. Smoky and pickle-y, creating a lovely pâté-like round to work through, especially when topped on the crunchy sourdough. Needless to say, she scarfed the whole thing.

My starter was shrimp tempura served in spicy Japanese mayo. The shrimp were large and moist, obviously freshly caught off the coast of the town. The tempura batter was light and crunchy, even under all the mayo (and they were absolutely coated in sauce). The mayo was light, sweet, and nicely spiced. Altogether these were delicious little puffs of shrimp that could have been an entire meal from the amount of them that were served on the plate.

Then, to round out the meal we shared fish and chips. This was actually the first round of fish and chips I got while in Ireland (my wife already had a portion at Lennan’s Yard), and I wasn’t disappointed. Like the shrimp, the fish (likely cod, although the menu didn’t specify) was well breaded and very crunchy. It wasn’t too greasy, but it was fried fish so there was a certain amount of expected greasy. The tartar sauce on the side was honestly really nice, not overly sweet and with a hint of herbiness to it. The peas on the side were served both whole and in a mint puree, and while I was worried the mint would be overpowering, it wasn’t.

And there were the chips, which were fantastic. Light, crunchy, salty, these were the perfect fries. I honestly wish the meal had come with more chips and less peas (even if the peas were good) because it was a fight to share this small cup of chips between two people. They were too good, and we both felt bad eating as many as we did so the other person got less. If we’d known how good the crunchy little potatoes would have been, we might have skipped the starters and asked for more chips… and maybe more fish, too. It was that good.

Overall, The Pier House was great. It wasn’t the place we’d wanted to go to when we showed up in Howth, but it far exceeded our expectations. And, honestly, Howth was a place I could see hanging out in for more than an afternoon. It had a nice atmosphere, and the seaside vibes were very relaxing. Then we could try all the places along the pier for our eating desires… but we’d likely go back to The Pier House again.